Beijing - Day one

We started our trip with an all day tour. With us are two other families from our adoption agency. Both are wonderful and it has been fun getting to know them before we all head our separate ways on Sunday morning. David is our tour guide in Beijing and also has a job as a travel agent and teacher. He is very nice, and always has something funny to say. The weather couldn't be nicer. A little brisk...and a lot of sun. We started the day with a trip to The Forbidden City and a trip through Tienanmen Square.



The Forbidden City is ancient China's version of Buckingham Palace. Housing over 9,000 different rooms we were told that if you were born in one room and slept in a different room each night, you would be 27 years old before you could make your way through all of them.




Tienanmen square was MASSIVE!





That bit took all morning. We then visited a local family's house in a huton village north of Beijing where they prepared an authentic Chinese meal. This was the real deal people...no one but our guide spoke a word of English. They were warm and welcoming to our group. All of the families in this district lived in houses and shared public bathrooms. This family also had a special license to feed Westerners as we are affectionately called.






This is the view from the third floor of the family's house we visited.

From there we had a rickshaw ride through the village. Our tour guide was a 20 year old girl who had just attended a vocational school to learn English so that one day she can be a tour guide in a different province.




We traveled from there to the a silk factory and picked up a few small items. Then back to the hotel for a quick one hour rest before heading to dinner in a very long dark alleyway. Our tour guide, David, has been wonderful. It has been interesting to hear his take on the cultural revolution. Beat and tired, we made it back to the hotel room and crashed out.

Tomorrow we will see The Great Wall, an acrobatics show, and have a Peking Duck Dinner. Then we will be up and early on Sunday morning for the big day! We will leave Beijing at 8:00 am - arrive in Fuzhou at 11:00 and just have enough time to get to the hotel room...get a few things organized before heading to get Molly.

I will get some pictures posted soon.... more later.